To Build a Home
by loveiscatastrophic
Summary: Tessa wakes up to find Will missing from bed. Knowing that he has been feeling troubled recently with all that Charlotte is asking of him, she decides to seek him out immediately. This is a small story I whipped up about Wessa being married, and it also happens to be my first fanfiction so... we'll see.


**A/N:**

 **Hi! I hope to find you all well, and I appreciate you opening this story despite the less than gripping summary.**

 **This is my first fan fiction, and my first ever story written for the public eye, so I'm a bit nervous. However, feel free to give any constructive criticism you may have for me. This is why I decided to post this in the first place!**

 **I may have more where this came from if it seems to be generally enjoyed by the readers, and if not, I'll just have to try my hand at another story!**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I love the Infernal Devices and I love love love Will and Tessa! So without further ado...**

 **(Also) DISCLAIMER: I OBVIOUSLY HAVE NO OWNERSHIP RIGHTS TO THESE CHARACTERS OR THIS WORLD. THOSE THINGS ARE OF THE GENIUS CASSANDRA CLARE'S CREATION.**

When she finds the other side of the bed cold to the touch, and unmistakably empty, Tessa groggily sits up on the pliable mattress. Rubbing sleep out of her eyes, she peers around the dark room, lit only by watery moonlight through a small window, for Will. She knows he isn't here without having to look, anyway. A room without Will in it is, to Tessa, somehow different than a room containing him. His absence is a hollowness that she cannot adequately describe, except to say that when he is gone, she can feel it somewhere deep in the recesses of her very soul.

The same way that she has felt Jem's during his time spent isolated in the City of Bones.

Tessa tosses the sheets away from her, her feet meeting the icy floor of the bedroom she and her new husband now share in the Institute. On her way to the door, she gasps as she almost trips on one of Will's boots left by the head of their bed. Sighing, she scoops it up and places it, along with the other that she found on the floor a few steps later, directly beside the door. She had been trying, for these first few weeks she had been given the pleasure of sharing a room with Will, to correct his habit of messiness. To no avail, of course. Changing the intrinsic wildness of Will was near impossible, and she was learning to clean up after not only herself, but another person as well. It was slightly annoying, but with Will, it was more than slightly necessary.

Grabbing her white dressing gown from one of the hooks by the door, she pads out into the chilly hallway. It had turned March as of last week, but London didn't seem to recognize that fact. Tessa draws the silk fabric of her gown closer around her, shivering, and continues on with her search.

Last night, during supper, Charlotte had received a missive from the Council to attend a last minute meeting. It was required for the Consul to live in Idris, but Charlotte had made it a condition of her accepting the role to stay at the Institute here in London, to provide Will with the training imperative to his replacing her as the head. Charlotte had asked Henry to create a Portal, through which she may arrive to the gathering of Shadowhunters in a timely manner. While Henry scurried off, for he had forgotten his stele in his laboratory, Charlotte had turned her birdlike figure to Will. "You will be attending as well, so hurry and finish your potatoes."

Will had looked affronted at this new information. "I went with you last time, and it was dreadfully boring. I believe I will pass on this most generous offer, but thank you, Charlotte."

With that, he shoveled a large portion of his boiled potatoes into his mouth. Charlotte's almost perpetual frown deepened markedly.

"I was not offering. You shall accompany me to this meeting, William," Charlotte had told him, hands on her tiny hips.

"You would not even allow me to speak at the previous one," Will argued. "Why is my presence so sought after if I cannot even voice my thoughts?" He had leaned back in his chair then, food abandoned for the moment, one black eyebrow raised.

"Because soon you will be able to do whatever you wish in these conferences, but for now you are to sit back and watch. Because soon you will be in charge of this whole establishment, you do realize that, don't you? I will not allow you to go into this blindly, Will. You will go with me to this Clave meeting, and any other meeting I ask you to go to, because you have an obligation to Shadowhunters everywhere to learn your newly assigned duties to the Clave. Do you understand?"

Charlotte had been frazzled, and Will indignant, by the time Henry had opened the Portal in the dining room. The swirling purple doorway filled the room with unnatural light, as they stepped through and disappeared. It was always an eerie sight to behold, and Tessa thought she would never get used to it.

Jane, the recently hired help after Sophie had left months ago when she became a Lightwood, was just finishing up plaiting Tessa's thick brown hair for bed when Will had thrust the door open and barreled in. Jane had let out an exclamation of shock, and Tessa had stood up and gently dismissed her from the room. Blushing furiously, Jane hurried past him into the corridor.

Tessa had to refrain from giggling. Since the young maid had come to the Institute, she had taken quite an obvious fancy to Will. Tessa hadn't minded in the least, she knew that the girl's fondness for Will terrified the poor thing, so much so that Jane would never utter a word to him. It often befuddled Will, and although Tessa liked the girl and felt sympathy for her, she was also a source of great amusement.

There was nothing funny in that moment, however, when she looked at Will. He appeared rather weary, leaning against the wall by the door. Tessa had stared at him, waiting for him to say something, or to look at her. He hadn't. Will had just slowly pushed the door shut, and shuffled over to the side of the bed, removing clothes with a certain carelessness that bespoke exhaustion.

Tessa had approached him with not a little caution. She had hardly seen Will so broken down since-

"How did the meeting go?" Tessa asked him in the softest voice she could summon, her eyes beseeching him to look up at her. Will groaned in answer. He was having trouble removing his jacket, most likely because he still wore his expensive silver cuff links. Shrugging out of the black jacket was made more difficult by the restrictive tightness around his wrists. Will cursed, and Tessa went to him, murmuring, "Sit down on the bed."

He did, having enough sense to look sheepish, as she deftly removed the metal clasps for him. Sitting there in only his flannel drawers and socks covering the lower half of his body, with his torso still fully clothed, he must of felt ridiculous. He looked it. Though Tessa had to admit, he was still so immorally handsome. Setting the links- a birthday gift from Cecily- down on the rosewood nightstand with a clatter, Tessa helped Will slide off his jacket. She then moved to help him unbutton his shirt, but he lightly waved her hands away, working on the rest of his clothing himself.

"Will…"

But he had only shaken his head and said, "Can we go to sleep? I promise we can talk tomorrow, I'm just completely and utterly bushed."

Tessa tried not to feel the pang of hurt that went through her chest, but she could not help it. The feeling came anyway. But she only smiled sadly at Will. "Of course."

When Will had finished dressing for bed in his cotton nightshirt and long drawers, he crawled into bed beside Tessa. They had started a tradition of a sort, in which they would read together before bed. They had decided that they would take turns each night, reading one chapter of a book of their choosing. The first one they had started together, _The Pickwick Papers_ , sat on her nightstand with one final chapter remaining. But somehow Tessa held a suspicion that Will would not desire to finish it tonight. So after giving it a wistful glance, for it was Will's turn and she so loved to listen to him read aloud, she swiftly leaned over to snuff out the light.

She had turned over on her side, sensing an odd ambience radiating out from her husband's body, signaling to her that he would not appreciate her touch just then.

Needless to say, it took her an immeasurable amount of time before she had drifted into a fitful slumber.

That was part of the reason, she thought, that she had woken up so easily when she had sensed Will's departure from their bed.

Now, as she turns right into another dimly lit corridor, she thinks that maybe Will does not wish for her to seek him out. Perhaps he wants to be alone to speculate.

No. She does not care. They are married now. They are supposed to share everything, even the things that are difficult or frightening.

Will Herondale will _not_ hide from her. Not anymore.

"Will," Tessa breathes. For she has found him, exactly where she had expected to find him. In the empty room that once belonged to James Carstairs, his _parabatai_ and freshly initiated Silent Brother. He now went by the name Brother Zachariah, but she and Will had never called him that unless around Shadowhunters outside of the Institute. Tessa watches with wide eyes as she sees that Will is gingerly holding Jem's violin in his lap. Across the room, underneath the open window, the case sits ajar and empty. No one, as far as she knew, had even touched the case since Jem had departed. Will had seen to that. And he had made sure that no one had given out this particular room for the use of visiting Shadowhunters. He looks up at her, his blue eyes bleak and helpless. She takes in a sharp breath and goes to him. Abruptly, he stands up and holds the instrument out to her, like a sacrifice.

"Here, I shouldn't be toying with his things. I-" His expression is wretched.

"Hush," she soothes, carefully taking Jem's violin from Will. "It's alright. I shall put it back in his case, and we can go back to bed." Tessa sets the only item- besides her jade pendant and Will's haunting silver scar- that they have left of Jem, lovingly into the velvet casing and closing it, snapping the buckles shut on the outside. She rises and turns to study her husband, who has moved to wait for her by the door. His hair is mussed from his pillow, and his eyes are red and somewhat droopy. He is clearly worn out to the fullest degree, and her heart tightens in her chest at the sight of him like this. It reminds her too much of the depressed boy he had been when Jem had first gone to the Silent City. It had taken much work by her and the others of the Institute to coax him back to a Will that could go more than a few hours without crawling back into his dark shell of despair. She blanches at the mere thought of Will withdrawing back into such a state.

"Will," she whispers. "Did something happen at the meeting?"

"No."

"Then whatever is the matter with you?" Tessa cries, worry eating her up from the inside. "Because you were perfectly fine before."

Will's eyes flashed. "Was I?" he says, deadpan. Tessa flinches.

"I thought you were…" her voice trails off. She is hurt, and she is having a hard time concealing it. If he had been upset before tonight, she had not been able to detect it, and _he hadn't told her._ She shivers, and her silk dressing gown is not helping much with the chill, both from the temperature of the Institute, and the iciness coming in waves off of Will.

"I was," he sighs, running a shaking hand through his ink-colored waves. "Fine, that is. But Tessa, this is not going to work, I-"

"Well, you very well cannot say that now," Tessa says, trying for lightness. "You have already married me. It is too late for that."

Not even the ghost of a grin graces his face. It is when he does not even acknowledge her joke that Tessa realizes just how _scared_ he is. But what could have her brave Will so terrified?

"They do not believe me capable of it," he mutters. "I should have known. Known that they would think the job beyond my limitations. And maybe- maybe it is, Tess." His voice breaks at the end, and so does Tessa's heart. She knows what he is talking about.

Ever since Charlotte had made it a condition of her accepting the role of Consul, Will's promotion to head of the London Institute had been the talk of every Shadowhunter event since. Anyone who had heard of William Herondale, had heard the rumors that he himself had instigated when he had thought himself cursed. Other members of the Clave thought him a reckless, and incorrigible adolescent. Although his curse has since been explained to the Clave, by none other than Charlotte herself as justification for her demands, most Shadowhunters still stand by their original perception of the young Welsh deviant. Charlotte had assured Will time and again that once he had run the Institute for a good while, and ran it well, that the others would come to see him as a respectable man as opposed to the deplorable boy he had made himself seem. It had not dawned on Tessa until this very moment, just how much these perceptions of him weighed on Will's conscience. She crosses over to stand directly in front of him, and places her cold hands to his cheeks. He does not even flinch.

"Charlotte would not have so determinedly vouched for you if this were beyond you," Tessa tells him firmly. "You are the absolute best person to run the Institute in her stead."

"I can't do this," Will says brokenly, closing his eyes. "I really do not think that I can do this. I have to tell Charlotte that _I can't do this._ "

"Look at me," Tessa hisses, and Will's eyes snap open at her tone. "You will _not_ tell Charlotte anything of the sort, William Herondale. You want this. You would not try so hard or care so much if you did not _want to do this._ And I will absolutely not let you throw anything away that you want so desperately, just on account of some petty words spoken by old dimwits who have no clue as to what they are spouting on about!"

Will opens his mouth as if to speak, but Tessa keeps on, not allowing him to.

"You are capable," she avows, letting her hands slide to his broad shoulders. "You will show them that much, but for now you mustn't let them bother you with their misconceptions."

Tessa is barely able to draw breath after such a speech, before Will leans down to capture her lips in a gentle, yet unyielding kiss. Suddenly, warmth fills her body and she forgets, momentarily, about the dreary coldness of earlier. Her hands tighten on his shoulders, and his arms encircle her waist, pulling her in close. Stupidly, Tessa nearly weeps with relief at the feel of his strong arms around her. Since he had gotten back from Idris, she had felt a distance between him and the world around him that she had found disorienting. Now, she was back in a familiar place, with no obstacles between her and the boy she loved. Thankfully, she was able to keep her aggravating need to cry at bay, and just allow Will to hold her.

Tessa draws away first, to gaze up at him, to smile reassuringly and to communicate to him that everything would be alright. He returns her smile by pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"How do you know exactly how to comfort me?" he inquires of her, running a hand across the smooth plait of her hair.

"You should have told me," she admonishes in answer. "The comfort could have been given much sooner. And we would have gotten more sleep, as I am sure it approaches dawn by now."

Will chuckles, releasing her only to take her hand in his calloused one. He leads her out of the room, and into the dark corridor toward their bedroom. "I will be certain to come to you sooner from now on, as I don't wish to garner your wrath if I do not."

"I am serious," Tessa whispers. "I want you to tell me of your worries, so that I may share your burden. I am your wife now and-"

His hand squeezes hers as they round the corner. "I know. I will. I'm sorry."

Tessa only purses her lips in response.

The couple enters the room, and both burrow under the refuge of the warm covers as the starting light of sunrise begins to flood the room, little by little. Tessa, instead of turning over as she had earlier that night, snuggles close into Will's side and matches her breathing to his. Just as they are both giving in to the pulls of sleep, a knock sounds at the bedroom door. Will grunts and curls closer into Tessa, and ignores it. Tessa giggles.

The knock comes again, more urgent this time. "Will!" Charlotte's voice calls from the other side of the wood.

Will groans, throwing the covers off in a violent flick of his wrist, hopping out of bed.

"Will!" Charlotte snaps again. "Will, get up, there is an urgent matter we must attend to involving faeries and-"

"By the Angel," Will exclaims, his voice thick with exhaustion. "Don't get your drawers all in a bunch, I'm coming!"

With that, Charlotte heaves a loud sigh, and then her footsteps can be heard retreating.

Tessa grins at Will from her spot in the warm bed. "When you are out there, feeling miserable and fatigued, think of me here in our bed, sleeping. Maybe then you will not hide things from me for so long."

Will throws one of his dirty socks at her.


End file.
